The Maid (15)

Once a maid always a maid - made to serve and give thanks for the privilege.

That's the assumption of all films associated with the contradictions between those who survive by serving those upstairs.

For those who are steeped in the bourgeois classics such tales always depict the struggle between those who own and control fending off the aspirational middle class, with the servants still part of the scenery.

However, since the rise of the working class, we have been used to seeing those on the bottom rung striving to raise their sights if not challenging the system that maintains wage slavery.

Typical is Joseph Losey's The Servant (1963), where you're almost asked to feel sorry for the upper-class twit who can't fend for himself and is a humiliated man capable of reversing the roles.

And so it is with The Maid, a far more light-hearted look a the relationship between a woman who is hired to look after a family, but is clearly always reminded that such security can't be guaranteed.

Written and directed by Sebastian Silva it stars Catalina Saavedra as Raquel, a woman who has been working for a wealthy family in Santiago for 20 years and is beginning to suffer severe migraines.

Not unnaturally, when she collapses they seek to get her help, which prompts Raquel to face the fact she might be expendable - especially since "her" children are suffering the usual growing pains.

Without elaborating, the story develops to illustrate her response, from engineering the downfall of any new arrival - especially when one embittered older hand quite rightly reminds her that they're all "fuckin' ingrates."

Sadly, it's difficult to relate to Raquel since she constantly looks like she's sucking a wasp, with the family simply following the traditions of patronage by maintaining a favoured retainer.

So, when a young, more confident woman (Mariana Loyola) arrives and proves more of a friend than an enemy, it helps Raquel to see she's got to take hold of her own life without necessarily losing her sense of place.

Therein lies the rub. While we're supposed to realise Raquel's lack of confidence arises from her unknown past, the conclusion is reduced to subjectivity, like the fact some guy fancies her for herself.

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Thoughts of Time?

You may reflect on how the masses were subjugated by warrior bands and armies, how their leaders appointed themselves as kings and gave their friends positions of favour and authority.

How they are still subjugated today?

How many days a week do you work for the ‘state’ and how many for yourself?